


the meaning of Robin

by PotterheadAvengerDemigod



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Robin: Son of Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bat Brothers, Bat Family, Batdad, Batfamily Feels, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Bromance, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Comfort/Angst, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Flying Graysons, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, The Flying Graysons, Tim Drake is Red Robin, batbros, batfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 16:01:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13391289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotterheadAvengerDemigod/pseuds/PotterheadAvengerDemigod
Summary: “Well, newsflash, I was the first Robin. Remember? None of you ever seem to remember I was the first one who was replaced. All of you are constant reminders that once upon a time, once, the man who raised me thought I wasn’t good enough."/OR/ The one where Dick Grayson is having a really bad day and finally snaps.





	the meaning of Robin

April first is always a bad day for Dick Grayson. The day when he lost everything.

Dick wakes feeling like he’s taken Harley’s mallet to the head, a headache pounding at his skull and an unexplainable weight on his chest, making it hard to breathe and even harder to think. The fact that he’d had a bad patrol the previous night that had ended with Jason finding him half-conscious in an alley and having to haul him back to the Manor for medical treatment doesn’t help matters. The stitches in his shoulder still sting, and the bandages wrapped around his torso make it even harder to breathe than it already is.

Still, he’s awake, and he can hear the sounds of the Manor rousing to life, Tim in his room next door typing away incessantly at his laptop, the repetitive thuds of Jason -and here, Dick is momentarily surprised, because even though Jason's on better terms with all of the family now he still tends to shy away from staying the night- throwing what could be anything from a stress ball to knives at the wall (Dick doubts it’s knives though, Alfred would have Jay’s head for destroying the wallpaper).

Dick shifts to get out of bed, swinging his legs off the side and just sitting there for a while, just breathing. It’s alright. It’s just a day. It’s been fourteen years. He can do this.

Just a normal day. Alfred in the kitchen, Bruce in his office, his brothers quibbling over the smallest thing.

Just a normal day.

He’ll have to get flowers later. Pink carnations, those had always been her favourite. White heather, purple hyacinth. A single dark crimson rose.

He’ll be okay. He has to be okay.

Already the sounds of Jason and Damian fighting are echoing through the halls, and Dick knows that Alfred is far too busy with breakfast to break them up. And he shouldn’t have to, the old butler did enough already.

So it’s down to Dick to be the responsible older brother, even though his head hurts and he’d rather not even leave his room. His cracked ribs are already protesting, and the room spins momentarily when he stands, and he thinks he should probably be breathing more regularly than he actually is, but he has a responsibility to this family, and that’s making sure that his little brothers don’t rip each other apart.

Close his eyes. Take a deep breath. Hold. Breathe out.

Okay. He’s got this.

The door beside him slams and the shouting downstairs escalates.

Great. Because Jason and Damian weren’t enough to deal with,  _ clearly,  _ and now Tim has to join in as well.

Dick takes another breath, reaches for the door, and slowly makes his way down the stairs. The faster the shouting stops the faster his headache decreases, and at least  _ that’s  _ incentive to stop the arguing, if nothing else.

He leans his weight against the doorframe and plasters a smile on his lips. “What’s this about, Li’l Wing?”

“Tell Demon Brat to stop attacking me, dammit!”

_“Excuse_ me?” Damian snarls, teeth bared. “I would not waste my training on the likes of _you,_ Todd!”

“So attacking  _ me  _ is fine, then?” Tim cuts in, brandishing a bandaged arm. “This is from last week when you  _ stabbed  _ me for trying to pet your cat!”

“Guys, please-”

“Oh, grow up, Drake, I barely scratched you. Alfred would have injured you far more grievously had you actually touched him.”

“Your  _ cat  _ would have injured me more than y-”

“And  _ you,  _ Replacement, stop screwing with my equipment every time I go out on patrol!”

“Come on, please don’t-”

“So you  _ want _ me not to upgrade your stuff?” Tim yells back, shifting his glare from Damian to Jason. “Would you rather I sit back and let Ivy’s next poison work it’s way out of your system, then?”

Dick pinches the bridge of his nose, trying desperately not to let the headache that’s pounding incessantly at his skull control him. He’s already on the knife’s edge, his ribs protesting every movement and his head feeling like it’s going to split apart. It doesn’t help that every time he stops and tries to tune out the pointless argument he’s reminded that today’s the first of April.

It doesn’t help that his heart is already breaking.

And this is a worse argument than most of the ones the three of them have had in recent months -they’d been getting closer, Dick had really thought so. He’d been so proud of them too, getting past their differences and actually working together.

“Guys, come on,” Dick tries, stepping between Tim and Jason, making sure Damian isn’t anywhere near either of them too. “Come on, I thought we’d worked past this already!”

“Well, if Replacement won’t stop being a mini Batman-”

“ _ I  _ am Father’s rightful heir, Todd, you have no right-”

“Shut up, Damian, we’ve all heard it before! The blood son, the true son, the heir to the throne-

“But I’m still the Robin who came before you! Bruce  _ chose  _ me, you were  _ forced  _ on him!”

And that’s it.

“Okay, that’s  _ enough!  _ All of you, just- just  _ shut up!”  _ Dick can’t stop the yell that bursts out, a hoarse shout, desperate and cracking and  _ furious. _

They’ve had this argument countless times, millions and billions of times and Dick can’t even count them now, and he doesn’t yell at them, he isn’t the one who shouts. He’s the fun-loving older brother who defuses the arguments like Nightwing defuses bombs, except that right now he’s the bomb, and he’s just blown up.

“Enough,” Dick repeats, and it’s not the anger that startles the other three into silence. It’s the cold, hard tone, steely and calm and  _ terrifying. _ “I’ve heard this argument so many times I could tell you how it goes from here in my sleep. Damian screams at Tim about how Bruce accepted him far quicker, Tim yells back, Jason cuts in with more nonsense about Bruce and vengeance, and then it goes on and on and  _ on.  _ You guys never stop, do you?

“You go on about replacing each other, about who Bruce loves the most, and then you guys turn on each other like you should be turning on villains, and it’s all about who was the better Robin, who fights better, it’s all about  _ you. _

“Well, newsflash, _I_ was the first Robin. Remember? Friendly ol’ me, always the big brother, always the one who stops you before you end up killing each other. But none of you ever seem to remember I was the first one who was replaced. _All_ of you are constant reminders that once upon a time, _once,_ the man who raised me thought I _wasn’t_ _good enough._ But I let it go. I still love all three of you, you’re _family,_ and I _let it go._ Do you know why?

“Do any of you understand the real meaning behind Robin? Do any of you know what the name stands for, why we use that name?

“Sure. It’s Robin, Boy Wonder. Robin, Batman’s better half. Robin, the boy who fights crime alongside Batman and stops the Dark Knight from falling prey to the shadows he works in. Robin, the boy who brings hope to Gotham.” Dick closes his eyes then, takes a breath, leans back against the wall and sighs.

He opens his eyes, lets his emotions equilibrate, tone evening out. “And sure, Robin does mean all that. That’s not wrong. But above all Robin means  _ family. _ And none,  _ none  _ of you seem to respect that.

“Have any of you ever stopped to question where the name came from? You really think Bruce Wayne, Batman, “I am vengeance, I am the Night” came up with a name like  _ Robin?  _ No. Of course not. Robin was  _ my  _ name! Robin was  _ my mother’s  _ name. My mother’s name… for me.”

Dick shakes his head then, closes his eyes, and he doesn’t hear Tim’s whispered, “Oh shit,” or Jason’s muttered, “Well, we screwed this one up majorly.”

He doesn’t see Damian’s stillness, doesn’t see the horror that dawns on Tim’s face, doesn’t see the way Jason opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it again.

“Yeah, I really did hate Jay for a while there when B gave him my name. I hated B even more. I really did. But then I saw the way Jason lit up when he took to the streets, saw the way Bruce smiled when he thought no one was watching. And how could I  _ not  _ forgive that? Robin means family, and how could I claim to love the name if I couldn’t respect what Dya always wanted me to? So I let it go, and I forgave you both, and I loved every one of you who took up the mantle afterwards. Because Robin means family, and every one of you who became Robin meant another one to add to this family. Another sibling to love.”

Dick tilts his head back against the wall then, and doesn’t notice the tear that streaks down his cheek. “And then Jay died. And I was so  _ angry.  _ I’d just come to terms with the meaning of Robin, and I’d just accepted that having a new little brother was going to be great, we could hang out and watch movies and prank B together. Then it was  _ gone.  _ But then Tim came along, and I swore I wouldn’t make the same mistakes I’d made with Jason. And everything was great for a while, and Jay came back, and he hated us, but that was okay, because Robin means family, right? So Jay was gonna come back to us eventually.”

Dick doesn’t see the stricken look on Jason’s face, doesn’t see the way Tim’s eyes water and the way he swipes brusquely at one of them.

“But then B died, and I had to become Batman, and then I had to  _ choose. _ And how could I choose? My two littlest brothers, the kid I watched growing up alongside Batman and the kid I was just getting to know.  _ How could I choose?  _ How could I say Robin meant family if I was ripping the title  _ away  _ from family?

“But I couldn’t see Tim as my Robin. Tim, the kid I watched fight alongside Bruce, the kid who’d already learned from both me and Bruce. He was my equal, how could I take him as my Robin? Robin is someone who stands to learn something from their Batman. And Tim had learned all he could from me. So I chose Damian. I had to. How could I not, knowing that if I didn’t he would have ended up back with Talia, back with the League of Assassins? How could I let Bruce’s biological son  _ kill?  _ So I chose Damian, and in doing so alienated Tim. And so the name that meant family had somehow ripped mine apart.”

Dick laughs then, hollow and mirthless, and shakes his head. “I could have handled it better. I  _ should _ have handled it better. I should have pulled Tim aside and explained it all. I didn’t, and I regret that everyday. But then B came back, and I found out that Tim had taken to calling himself Red  _ Robin,  _ and I thought, yeah, maybe this would work out. And it took a while, but it seemed like it did. Slowly, my family seemed to build itself back together again. And I thought we were doing better, I really did. Dami didn’t try to kill anyone any longer, and Jay wasn’t attacking us every chance he got. All of us started spending more time together, and we could have meals together without fighting, and it was great.

“Robin finally meant family again,” Dick murmurs, the smile tugging at his lips wan and self-deprecating. “But then you guys choose  _ today  _ of all days to start the fighting again.”

And Dick doesn’t see the way Tim calculates the dates in his head, doesn’t see the way Jason throws him a confused look, doesn’t see the way Damian’s entire posture stiffens, or the way he bites at his lip, just for a split second.

All he sees is Dya’s face, blurring around the edges, her red hair and blue eyes-  _ his  _ blue eyes. The blue eyes that they share.

Dat is there too, the black hair that he’d inherited, those warm dark eyes with the smile lines wrinkled around them, hugging him tight between them, sandwiched on both sides by the Flying Grayson green and gold. It’s been fourteen years, and their features are blurring, his memories warping. What did Dya smell like? He remembers being comforted by burying his face in his shoulder whenever she’d wrapped him up in her arms, but he doesn’t remember much else. What was Dat’s smile like, exactly? Did his smile tilt up to one side? Were his teeth just slightly out of alignment?

The small details, the ones he can’t record down, the small details are fading. He doesn’t want them to fade. Maybe remembering everything in perfect detail would make the pain worse, rip at his heart even more, but he’d willingly give that if it meant he could just  _ remember. _

“My little robin,” Dya would croon, if she were here. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about us.”

“You go live your life how you want, Dickie,” Dat would add, and those crow’s feet would crinkle as he smiled.

And Dick slides down the wall, tucks himself into the corner of the wall and the floor, hugs his knees close to his chest and turns his gaze down to the floor.

He’s almost the age Dya was when she’d died. He’s taller than Dya now, taller than Dat, and still sometimes he looks in the mirror and sees warm brown eyes where blue should be.

He doesn’t realise there are tears on his cheeks until he looks down and the knees of his sweats are damp.

He swipes at the tears, watches wet bloom on the red of cotton, transfixed as damp spreads and bright red turns dark.

He’s lived longer without Dat and Dya than he has with them now, but it still hurts, and nothing takes away the pain. Bruce had told him, once, when he’d first come to live in the Manor, that the pain never really went away. It lessened over time, yes, but it would never go away. It was what you did with it that defined who you were.

Dick thinks -hopes- Dat and Dya would be proud of him now.

And then suddenly there are arms around his neck, a weight on his uninjured shoulder, and Dick blinks, startled. He looks up and sees green eyes, short dark hair, and downturned lips.

“I-” Damian starts, and Dick wraps his arms around his littlest brother instinctively. “I apologise, Richard. I did not mean to cause you distress.”

Damian buries his face in Dick’s shoulder, latches on tight, tighter than Dick’s ever remembered Damian holding him since that time when Dick came back from being supposedly dead, and yeah, Dick’s cracked ribs protest a little, but right now Dick can’t care.

He rubs a hand down Damian’s spine, gently cautious of the scar that spans the length of that small back.

“Hey,” Dick mumbles, pressing his face to Damian’s short hair. “Hey, it’s okay, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you guys.”

And then Tim is suddenly on the floor next to Dick, leaning close and shaking his head. “No, you were in the right. You’re right, Dick, we’ve had this argument so many times now it’s pointless. We shouldn’t have let it escalate so far, shouldn’t keep taking you for granted and assuming you’re always gonna come defuse the fight. This one’s on us, Big Bird.”

Dick presses his lips together at that, sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, and lets it out in a sigh. He doesn’t know how to respond to that. He’s the big brother, isn’t he  _ supposed  _ to handle sibling rivalries?

And there’s a thud as Jason drops to the floor in front of him, legs crossed and chewing at his bottom lip.

“Hey,” he starts, and then he closes his mouth and takes a breath. “I-I’m sorry, Goldie, and-”

Jason gulps then, swallows hard enough that Dick can see his Adam’s apple bob. “So,” he says, and forces a smile. “Tell us about them? Your folks?”

And this time smiling isn’t so hard.

* * *

 

“Dat? Dya? I have some people you’ll want to meet.”

Dick smiles softly, sadly, and places a small bouquet of pink carnations on the ground. He steps aside, and Jason steps forward, an arrangement of white heather and purple hyacinths in hand. He kneels, propping the flowers beside the carnations, and then moves to let Tim forward.

Tim kneels too, laying the single dark crimson rose in front of the two bouquets. Then he shifts away, and Damian bends, his offering laid down against the rest.

“These are my brothers, Dya, Dat. Jason’s the oldest after me. He’s brash, and impulsive, and fierce, but he’s a good person. You would like him, Dya, you would say he has spirit. Tim’s the next. He’s smart, and calm, and he just doesn’t know how to take care of himself. He’ll pester the rest of us until we get the rest and food we need, but he won’t sleep until he collapses. Perseverance, you would say, Dat. You’ve always liked that. And Damian. He’s the youngest, but he’s so serious all the time, Dya, you would have loved to joke around until he finally cracked a smile. But he’s brave, and strong, and he’s been through so much. I think you would have loved them all, you know. I do, and I wish you could have met them.”

Dick swipes a tear away, then lifts a hand to ruffle Damian’s hair, hugging each of his brothers close to his side for just a moment. He stares down at the flowers for a while longer, at the patch of ground that he knows so well, and he smiles, just a little, as his three little brothers crowd close. Then he turns away, and heads back to the Manor, his brothers beside him.

Behind them, leaning against time-worn stone, the gold of a Robin insignia gleams.

**Author's Note:**

> On a small side note, in case anyone's wondering, the flowers I picked do have meanings relevant to the story.  
> Pink Carnations: a mother's undying love, also to mean "I'll never forget you"  
> Purple Hyacinth: sorrow, apology, regret  
> White Heather: protection  
> Dark Crimson Rose: mourning  
> A single rose in full bloom generally means "I love you", or "I still love you".
> 
> [My Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/_dreamdweller/)  
> Pop over and say hi!


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